Learn how to use focus filters on iPhone and iPad to increase your productivity and limit outside distractions when a Focus mode is active.
The Focus feature temporarily restricts notifications to specific apps and people to cut down on distractions. For instance, a Do Not Disturb focus only allows calls and texts from family members and notifications from essential apps like Phone and Mail.
What are focus filters on iPhone? How do they work?
Focus filters are Focus mode options that let you set boundaries in apps that support them (app filters) or toggle system settings (system filters). Yo can apply these filters to any built-in or custom Focus mode on your iPhone, iPad, and Mac.
- Work Focus: Use the Calendar filter to only show work-related calendar events in the built-in Calendar app, hiding everything else.
- Personal Focus: Conversely, you can use the Calendar filter to hide work-related stuff on your calendar when the Personal focus is active.
- Work Focus: Similarly, a Messages filter will hide all texts except those from your office colleagues when the Work focus is on.
- Sleep Focus: I typically use system filters to automatically turn on Dark Mode and Low Power Mode when in Sleep focus.
- Third-party apps: Apple provides focus filters for many of its built-in apps, but third-party developers can also implement custom focus filters in their own apps. As an example, Fantastical has a focus filter for choosing calendar sets and Grammarly Keyboard app ships with a focus filter which allows you to turn off haptic and sound feedback when a particular Focus is turned on.
In short, focus filters temporarily hide specific content in an app or toggle an iOS feature so you can fully focus on the task at hand without any other distractions.
How to set focus filters on iPhone and iPad
To use focus filters, you must be familiar with the Focus feature (we have a dedicated tutorial explaining know how to use Focus Mode on iPhone and iPad). Follow the steps below to add filters to any Focus mode on your iPhone and iPad.
1) Open the Settings app on your iPhone or iPad and choose Focus from the list.
2) You’ll see built-in Focuses like Do Not Disturb, Driving, Sleep, Reduce Interruptions, and others. Pick an existing Focus or tap the plus button to create a new one. I already have an iDB focus for when I’m writing articles, so I’ll pick it.
3) Scroll down to the Focus Filters section and tap Add Filter.
4) Choose an app or system filter. We’ll choose Mail.
5) Next, I’l select my work account and hit Add.
And that’s all there’s to it! Whenever I switch to the iDB focus, the Mail filter temporarily hides everything but my work emails in the Mail app.
I can also toggle this filter from within the Mail app for those times when I’d like to see all my emails without having to reconfigure the filter in my iDB focus settings.
Add more focus filters
You can follow the same steps to add additional filters to any Focus. Keep in mind that many focus filters offer their own options, as evidenced right ahead.
Calendar
The Calendar focus let you select visible calendars like Home, Work, Family, Birthdays, country holidays, etc to only show you those events when a Focus mode is active.
Safari
The Safari filter enables you to pick which Safari profiles or tab groups the browser shows you when a particular Focus mode.
Messages
The Messages filter lets you include or exclude messages from specific people by turning on the Filter by People List option.
Now scroll to the top, tap Choose People under Silence Notifications, and select Allow Notifications From, then hit Add People and cherry-pick specific contacts to show notifications from when this Focus mode is active.
If you now turn this Focus on and switch to the Messages app, you should only see texts and iMessages from the selected people. Don’t worry, you’ll still get messages from people you haven’t explicitly allowed notifications from but they’re not visible and will show up once this Focus is off.
I set up my iDB focus to only receive notifications from my other account, my mother and wife and my iDB editor. The Messages app only shows me chats from those folks and nothing else, giving me a distraction-free inbox. But if need to receive a one-time verification code via SMS, I can hit Turn Off in the Messages app to receive the code and then turn it back on. Clean, thoughtful, and helpful!
The same general logic and guidelines as above apply to focus filters from apps such as Music, Outlook, Grammarly, and others.
System filters
System filters can activate or deactivate system features like Always On Display, Dark Mode, Low Power Mode, Silent Mode and others when a particular Focus is active.
What are your thoughts on focus filters on iPhone or iPad? Do you use them? Setting up Focus modes that match your daily routine sounds like a pain. But with little patience and knowledge about focus filters, you can configure your iPhone to minimize distractions to the bare minimum.
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